north-of-anything
Active Member
Via doesn't have many places to stop along the Peterborough route, anyways. I'm describing service patterns in general between Toronto and Ottawa/Montreal, not just along the Peterborough route.
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- Thread starter innsertnamehere
- Start date
nfitz
Superstar
The third track is already under construction from Guildwood to Rouge Park. The only reason it doesn't go any further, is that all GO trains stop at Pickering - and there's already 5 tracks at Pickering station itself, between the two subdivisions (with capacity for 8).
Why do you think the third track won't be completed?
Fourth track is another question - but nothing precludes it. They've slowly been adding additional tracks along Lakeshore for decades - and there's enough space for 6 in most places, other than where they stole 2 tracks for the subway.
They've talked about one at Line 2 in the past - think back to some of the pre-Transit City alternates to the DRL. And I can see value to rebuilding Don station. But there's easily space for 6 tracks at Don. I'd assume if it's for expanding Broadview station with tracks on the GO line, then they can use some of the city's scrubland on the east (it would have easily been wide enough, but the city stole some of the CP ROW to build the DVP).
Nothing precludes 4 tracks all the way up to the CP mainline - it's about a 40-metre wide alignment at the minimum. Expense would be the issue. I don't even think the bridge at the Brickworks is a big deal..
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crs1026
Superstar
It was originally described as going all the way to Liverpool, then cut back to Rouge Hill, then the procurement was cancelled altogether..I'm not aware of any construction actually in progress east of Guildwood, except for grade separations which will no doubt rough in room for expansion.
In the timeframe for Alto, it's still possible.....but at this moment it's likely a staring contest between ML and Ottawa.
As a GO project, it competes with others for funding, and while it is doable it isn't cheap.... so will take a major amount of pressure. One suspects that ML will resist as long as possible, preferring to let any express GO service make due with whatever time crunch emerges wrt interleaving with stopping trains.
- Paul
nfitz
Superstar
It's listed as being part of the Lakeshore East expansion at https://www.metrolinx.com/en/projec...go-expansion/what-were-building/corridor-work
When was infrastructure procurement cancelled? I only heard about the operations contract.
crs1026
Superstar
There were two Infrastructure Ontario procurements a few years back. These seem to have disappeared from the interweb and were never awarded. (A third, dealing with the Don to Scarborough Jct region, was awarded and is now what is being worked on)
I also recall Phil Verster remarks in the ML Board meetings from previous years about how they had decided that better signalling could accommodate the traffic without more track.
- Paul
2016 Version
2017 and 2018 Procurements
nfitz
Superstar
I thought all this remaining Lakeshore trackwork has been rolled into the OnExpress contract. The infrastructure side of the group still remains - and even posted a new job ad this week.
There's been notices to residents about geotechnical work along the track, all the way out to Oshawa. Though I'm puzzled why they'd be doing this east of Pickering.
There's been notices to residents about geotechnical work along the track, all the way out to Oshawa. Though I'm puzzled why they'd be doing this east of Pickering.
crs1026
Superstar
Quite possible they have picked this up.... it's a bit hard to know what they are doing versus what ML committed to finish before they took over.
- Paul
Woodbridge_Heights
Senior Member
While I agree that, in the context of the current Alto proposal, it can be seen as scope creep. I also argue that the scope of ALTO is shortsighted, and it's not just ALTO but virtually EVERY proposed high speed rail project in the last 3 decades has had the same lack of vision.
Sure you could argue the massive cost of such a program would scare off even the most spend friendly administration. However we need to aim high.
Urban Sky
Senior Member
At the end of the day, the question is rarely how ambitious we are, but how willing we are to acknowledge the real-world constraints we are facing (political, fiscal, economic, commercial, legal, etc) and to accept compromises. Hope for the best, but plan for the worst…
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micheal_can
Senior Member
If we had decades to plan out a phased construction of it,I agree. The phases would be T-O, O-M and M-QC. Each of those phases could be built along their own timelines. Each of those phases could be built with all factors involved. The problem is, we are throwing caution to the wind and trying to do it all at once. So,if that is the case, we need to pick the best corridor to build it and have it designed where future stations could be built once it is operational on an as needed basis. We might even find that after 5 years, they have added more stations and will build it at the same time,but open it in phases. We already know where the easy sections are. We also know where the much harder sections are. The easiest is the O-M. The hardest is T-O. The question is whether we can have part of it open if it does not go to Toronto, yet. What would be really nice is if as they build this, they plan for and start construction on whatever they are going to do for SWO. Having shovels in the ground for that once the full ALTO opens is aiming really high for Canada.
generalcanada
Senior Member
Pretty sure theres a document out there for the phased planning on construction they want to do?
Urban Sky
Senior Member
We indeed have a Staging Plan, but it is so preliminary and lacks any grasp of reality that it’s not worth the pixels it has been written with (even if they had identified the three sections):
If their plan was to actually build and open Phase 1 (almost definitely: Montreal-Ottawa) relatively early and then to spend much more time on the tougher nut (Ottawa-Toronto) and (even later) the impossible one (Montreal-Quebec) to crack, I could take ALTO seriously, but instead, they plan construction of the three segments to start only 1 year apart from each other and operations to start only 2 years apart:
Source: Groups.io
There are only 3 explanations as to why ALTO claims that such a timeline is anything else than completely fanciful and doomed to fail - and I don't know which one (they are too incompetent to know better, they haven’t told the government yet, or the government decided to keep the illusion against better knowledge) is the least troubling.
Anyways, if this project is going to get built and look anything remotely like what is currently promised to us, we will have nobody else than King Donald I. to thank, as without him, the project would have been dramatically curtailed by the (until a month ago: near-certain) change of government before the end of this year…
micheal_can
Senior Member
The phases they speak of is not the phased I mean. For example, if we were to compare T-O and O-M,today, crews could start widening the Alexandria Sub and lay new tracks and infrastructure pretty quickly. That cannot be said for the Havelock Sub. However, if today they started work on both subs, and opened them once they were done, we would see the O-M open years sooner than the T-O. Doing the hardest work first,then lay all the roadbed, then all the tracks, while it may be phased, it is not going to speed up opening day of our first HSR in Canada.
Hieberrr
New Member
I am a firm believer that the Toronto station needs to be in the downtown core. I recently just booked a VIA trip from Toronto to Montreal and one of the strongest considerations was where the terminal was in Montreal - right smack in the middle of Old Montreal. Easy access and connection to the core is key here.
And if we're talking about HSR replacing VIA then Union makes the most sense.
Generally the 'where' is obvious.
Also, Toronto only needs one stop unless we have plans to actually build out the areas where other Toronto stations would be located. There's really no reason to follow the GO model and build stations in the middle of a car park.
And if we're talking about HSR replacing VIA then Union makes the most sense.
Generally the 'where' is obvious.
Also, Toronto only needs one stop unless we have plans to actually build out the areas where other Toronto stations would be located. There's really no reason to follow the GO model and build stations in the middle of a car park.
Urban Sky
Senior Member
Intercity rail stations don’t necessarily need to serve downtown cores or main business districts, but they need to be where the main transit hubs are and these tend to be close to where the existing intercity rail stations are, because the need to feed into the main hubs has already been understood for more than a century.
Why do we think that banks (and other major employers in the professional services industry and thus depending on highly skilled employees) tend to cluster downtown even if its employees mostly live in the suburbs or wider region? Because that’s where the main transit hubs are located, which offer the by-far best connectivity into the entire region. Sure, you can relocate your offices from Bay Street to Oakvile, but that makes you lose far more talent from York and Durham regions than you could possibly attract from Peel region.
And this is also the reason why satelitte stops make a lot sense, provided they unlock significntly improved connectivity (i.e., shorter trave times and/or less transfers) to a significant part of the region. Hamburg-Harburg, Berlin-Spandau and Basel Badischer Bahnhof are excellent complements to Hamburg Hbf, Berlin Hbf and Basel SBB, but would be horrible substitutes if you were to skip these actual hubs…
Why do we think that banks (and other major employers in the professional services industry and thus depending on highly skilled employees) tend to cluster downtown even if its employees mostly live in the suburbs or wider region? Because that’s where the main transit hubs are located, which offer the by-far best connectivity into the entire region. Sure, you can relocate your offices from Bay Street to Oakvile, but that makes you lose far more talent from York and Durham regions than you could possibly attract from Peel region.
And this is also the reason why satelitte stops make a lot sense, provided they unlock significntly improved connectivity (i.e., shorter trave times and/or less transfers) to a significant part of the region. Hamburg-Harburg, Berlin-Spandau and Basel Badischer Bahnhof are excellent complements to Hamburg Hbf, Berlin Hbf and Basel SBB, but would be horrible substitutes if you were to skip these actual hubs…
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